I think trying to separate abortion from politics (both in real life and in this conversation) is problematic. I think they're too linked to take them apart.
My problem is the loss of civility that abortion as an issue brings to the discussion. With a few exceptions where someone felt that 'asshole' and the like were synonyms with 'disagrees with me', everything was going quite well until abortion showed up.
The problem seems to be that there's no good starting point where we can all agree 'A = A' and move forward. There's an organism of questionable perception and brain function, but which is definitely human. Does that organism have natural rights? Can one not-yet-person impose its rights on a fully-formed person? Should we be killing human things with impunity?
Also, people approach the problem from such different fundamental issues. Battling Kantian vs. non-Kantian would be fun. Hashing out whether certain natural rights trump others is interesting. Arguing for or against government participation in the whole issue is very much in the spirit of this thread, even! But with abortion, as often as not, the arguments turn into things like Kantian vs government non-intervention that are on separate planes.
Having accidentally ranted on the nature of abortion debates, I'll try to get back to the topic at hand..